


Keepsake

by GoldenTruth813



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 20:05:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5104043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenTruth813/pseuds/GoldenTruth813
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were nothing, and then one day they were something.  It should be surprising but instead its just right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keepsake

Draco had always secretly prided himself on being a Harry Potter expert. They’d spent so many years together it sometimes felt like he knew him better than he knew his own friends. 

Granted quite a few of those years were spent in bitter rivalry, and more than one was spent in the midst of a war. But the idea of knowing your enemy as well as you know yourself had been something drilled into him from a very early age.

When it had become clear that he and Potter would not be friends he’d resolved himself to learn every single weakness the other boy possessed. It had seemed almost too perfect in the beginning, too easy. The other boys life was filled with so much tragedy it just screamed doom, and if the rumors were anything to go by his life away from Hogwarts was just as bad. It was all easy. Too easy.  
And the problem was, the harder Draco watched the less perfect it all became. The truth was, the more he learned about Harry the less he felt like he knew about himself. 

He didn’t understand how someone who had known so much loss could still have so much hope.

He didn’t understand how someone who had been betrayed at every turn still managed to trust so freely.

He didn’t understand how someone who’s life was ruled by the idea of death could live life so fully.

He didn’t understand how someone could have so much courage when all they’d ever experienced should have taught them fear.  
And so Draco began to file away all these observations for later, just in case. It had never occurred to him that he would truly need them, but he had wanted to keep them for himself for reasons he did not dare examine.

And when the time came to pick sides he did the only thing he believed he could. It did not matter that by then he knew he already knew on some level it was wrong because there was no turning back, not from how far down he’d already gone. He could not see another way.

Until the day Harry and his friends ended up at the manner. His blood still runs cold when he thinks about it. So much of that day is a blur but he remembers so clearly knowing exactly who Harry was. It had been on the tip of his tongue to say it but the words would not come. Instead all he can remember thinking instead was of all the bits and pieces, all the memories of Potter he wasn’t supposed to keep - the way he smiled into his tea, the ferocity with which he protected the ones he loved, the way he looked when he caught the snitch, the way he looked when he was happy, the way he looked when he was scared.

In that moment it had seemed utterly impossible to keep living life the way he had. And suddenly he had realized that all of the little things he’d kept hidden in his heart were threatening to bubble out; they were no longer his secrets but his truths.

When the war ended Draco no longer knew who he was supposed to be. He’d spent months floundering, unable to grasp at the here and now because he felt like he was still drowning in all the should have beens.

Then one day Harry had reappeared in his life, and suddenly it was as if everywhere he looked there he was again, and before he knew Draco it he was once again collecting bits of information and mentally hiding them away - the way Harry goes to look at owls every Monday without fail but never buys one, the way he lingers at the bookstore as if looking for something but isn’t sure what, the way he stares at his tea so long it’s cold by the time he starts drinking it, and especially the way sometimes Draco thinks Potter is watching him back just as intently.

They go months like that, both watching from a distance, watching and waiting; Draco doesn’t know what they’re waiting for just knows it feels important.

So on a rainy Tuesday in May, exactly one year after the war, when Harry sits at his table without a word and sets a cup of coffee in front of him, with lots of cream and sugar just the way anyone watching him would know he liked it, along with a rather fluffy looking lemon muffin, Draco doesn’t say “why?” or “what are you doing here?“ 

Instead he slides his cup of tea that is now too cold to be enjoyed by anyone except the other boy across the table and says "it’s about time.”


End file.
